I lost a few weekends of working on the experiments because the moving van arrived with the contents of the house and a few days after that the shop elf arrived!

We are now in the midst of unpacking and along with that I am taking either Saturday or Sunday to run the experiments. I can't tell you what I am doing right now, since that will be in the paper for the Symposium and I hope to have an article, too, that will be published in a Jewelry magazine, for the small studio artist that wants to put the Red Copper (I) Oxide on their copper work.

At the beginning of September, I anneal all my copper disks, so I can stamp experiment codes on them. Then of course they all went into the pickle to be cleaned.

During the annealing, YES!, I was able to produce the red oxide even though I was not trying to. So take that as a hint for the article.

Two weeks ago I started the experiments. I was able to get 1 experiment of 3 sets done since each set takes over 2 hours and I am working with multiple piece of copper in each set. Last weekend, I only did 2 experiments of 3 sets each due to a late start and unpacking the kitchen, which is done!  Today, I have done 3 experiments with 3 and 4 sets;  with the last set happening as I type. 

Here are some pictures... of the annealing and of todays experiments. As you can see, Experiment #5 is on the verge of orange/gold and Experiment #6 is showing some red. 
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This past weekend, I setup the kiln, I will be using for my Red Oxide experiments,  with my pyrometer to compare the kiln read out to the pyrometer readings.  I can't actually calibrate the kiln but I from this test I can determine the temperature differentials.

To start, I put the thermistor (the sensor) in the oven via the vent hole on the top. I  set the oven up to use one of the pre-programmed heating schedules for PMC and turned the oven on.  I found for this first test, that at the lower temps the difference was off by 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit and as the kiln got up to temperature and into the hold range, the temperature differential between the two read outs was either spot on or within 5 degrees.

For my second test, now that the kiln was already hot, again kiln was a bit lower in temperature but well within a 5 degree window of the pyrometer read out.

It should be noted my sensor was in the middle of the kill in relation to the four walls and in the upper quarter of the height of the kiln but the internal sensor is located in the middle of the back wall. That may be why my sensor was a bit warmer. 

Today I am annealing and then picking my copper disk that I will be using for my experiments. Then they will be read to be stamped them with the codes for the various experiments which will start next week.